William M. Kunz is assistant professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington at Tacoma. He has also worked as a vice president and senior producer at Turner Broadcasting and as a producer with ABC Sports and NBC Sports.
Culture Conglomerates: Consolidation in the Motion Picture and Television Industries...offers a new analysis of the growing consolidation in the visual media-film and television. * Communication Booknotes Quarterly, December 2008 * Kunz's book is a marvelous addition to the large body of literature on the media industries from a political economy perspective. He asks some fundamental questions about the high degree of concentration in film and television industries and its relationship to the failure of corporate media to create an informed citizenry. Equally important, Kunz demonstrates how the U.S. government and the dominant corporations have worked hand in hand since Ronald Reagan's presidency to create this situation in the United States. The book is well researched, well argued, and lucidly written. This is not 'abstract' empiricism but solid political-economic research that will be useful for researching and teaching for years to come. -- Manjunath Pendakur, Southern Illinois University